Category: Slavery

Team member Felix Knight looks through archives at the Church of Espiritu Santo in Havana, Cuba. David LaFevor The Slave Societies Digital Archive documents the lives of approximately 6 million free and enslaved Africans in the Americas. By Dr. Jane Landers / 12.04.2018 Professor of History Vanderbilt University Many years ago, as a graduate student searching in[…]

Print depicting enslaved people producing sugar in Antigua, 1823 / British Library, Public Domain After the Caribbean was first colonised by Spain in the 15th century, a system of sugar planting and enslavement evolved. David Lambert explores how this system changed the region, and how enslaved people continued to resist colonial rule. By Dr. David[…]

Slaves loading rum barrels from Ten Views in the Island of Antigua (1823) by William Clark. Courtesy British Library/Wikipedia With its huge sugar plantations and brutal slave regime, this was the jewel in the imperial crown. By Dr. Christer Petley / 11.02.2018 Professor, School of Humanities University of Southampton It is no surprise that the whip is synonymous[…]

Maroons ambush British troops on the Dromilly Estate, Jamaica / British Library, Public Domain Jamaican Maroons fought two major wars against the British during the 18th century. With reference to maps and views in the King’s Topographical Collection, Miles Ogborn investigates these communities of escaped slaves and their attempts to retain their freedom in a[…]

She took the international abolitionist stage during the Civil War. By Adam McNeil / 07.13.2018 PhD Student in Black Women’s Intellectual and Political History University of Delaware The meaning of the American Civil War has been, and still is, one of the most contentious issues facing the United States today. An aspect of the war that seems[…]

Etching of mid-19th century Havana / Creative Commons In the sixty years after 1807, many former slave trading nations, in particular the British, launched a major effort to suppress the slave trade. By Oscar Grandio Moraguez In the sixty years after 1807, many former slave trading nations, in particular the British, launched a major effort to[…]

Slaves being branded / Public Domain The trans-Atlantic slave trade was the largest long-distance coerced movement of people in history. By Dr. David Eltis Robert W. Woodruff Professor Emeritus of History Emory University Introduction Diagram of a slave ship from the Atlantic slave trade / Wikimedia Commons The trans-Atlantic slave trade was the largest long-distance[…]

Until recently, the subject of childhood under slavery was almost entirely unstudied. By Dr. Steven Mintz Professor of History The University of Texas at Austin Until recently, the subject of childhood under slavery was almost entirely unstudied. This was true despite the fact that childhood is central to an understanding of slavery. In classical antiquity,[…]

His name was Josiah Henson and he once was as famous as Frederick Douglass. So what happened? By Jared A. Brock / 06.17.2018 When one thinks of the pantheon of the great black abolitionists, several spring to mind: Frederick Douglass. Harriet Tubman. Solomon Northup. But there is a fourth leader who once belonged to that[…]

A new exhibition at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello estate in Charlottesville, Va., displays artifacts from Sally Hemings, in her living quarters. Jefferson fathered six of her children. / Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello Until now, the slaves who lived at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia estate, existed largely in the background. By Michel Martin (left) and Emma[…]

Dred Scott By Dr. Matthew Pinsker Associate Professor of History Pohanka Chair in American Civil War History Dickinson College Dred Scott was one of the most famous slaves in American history. By filing for freedom in St. Louis Circuit Court on April 6, 1846, this husband and father of two girls set in motion a[…]

Splitting up a family at auction / Public Domain The weeping time does not end with weeping; it ends with triumph. By Dr. Anne C. Bailey / 04.29.2018 Associate Professor of African American History Binghamton University In 1859, more than 400 enslaved people – men, women and 30 babies – from the Butler plantation estates[…]

Collector Keya Morgan bought this photograph of two slave children, which was accompanied by a document detailing the sale of John for $1,150 in 1854. / Public Domain By Dr. Colleen Vasconcellos Associate Professor of History University of West Georgia Introduction From the 16th to the 18th centuries, an estimated 12 million Africans crossed the[…]

Overview of Pueblo Bonito / Photo by John Wiley, Wikimedia Commons By Dr. P. Scott Corbett, et.al. Professor of History Ventura College Introduction In Europe supported by Africa and America (1796), artist William Blake, who was an abolitionist, depicts the interdependence of the three continents in the Atlantic World; however, he places gold armbands on the[…]

Daguerreotype of John Brown, by John Bowles, c.1856 / Boston Athenaeum via Wikimedia Commons By Dr. Christopher H. Hamner Professor of History George Mason University Brown and the Raid John Brown was active in the abolition movement for decades before the Civil War, and had earned a notorious reputation for his antislavery activities in Kansas during[…]

Wikimedia Commons (click image to enlarge) By Dr. Catherine Denial Associate Professor of History Knox College Common Misconceptions When textbooks discuss colonial labor practices, they most often associate the concept of labor with male work done outside the physical boundaries of the home—in fields; on docks; in warehouses; on ships. Labor is associated with creating[…]

By Dr. Kurt Von Daacke Professor of History and Assistant Dean University of Virginia Between June 19 and August 6, 1822, the Charleston, SC, Court of Magistrates and Freeholders interrogated, tortured, and tried in closed sessions over 100 African Americans as co-conspirators in a planned slave rebellion. Almost all were slaves. The court sent 35[…]

The family story Perline Boyattia grew up with said her ancestors were Cherokee Indians. Her oral history was similar to the spoken record of other black families in Oklahoma. / Photo by Jenni Monet A landmark decision offers opportunity for healing between descendants of slaveholders and slaves. By Jenni Monet / 09.06.2017 Four days after[…]

Five generations of a slave family / Shutterstock By Dr. Daina Ramey Berry / 06.19.2017 Associate Professor of History and African American Diaspora Studies University of Texas at Austin People think they know everything about slavery in the United States, but they don’t. They think the majority of African slaves came to the American colonies,[…]